The Independent’s recent article on Ibiza is comically inaccurate

In the early hours of this morning an article emerged on independent.ie titled ‘We took Coke, Ecstasy, MDMA, the usual’ – the Irish ravers who party for days on end in Ibiza’. Written by Barbara McCarthy, I couldn’t help but find the exaggerated, inaccurate representation of the island amusing, and thought it should be confronted. From the beginning of the article it’s like reading a story from that 19-year-old that you’d meet at a festival, who would have to let you know the types and amount of drugs they’ve consumed that day, just to impress you. Consisting of paragraph after paragraph of what I’d consider somebody trying to look cool or showing off, while making a mockery of dance and club culture – anyone who has been to Ibiza or even been to a dance gig would see how wrong this all is. It represents the stereotypical view of Ibiza, the view that would be seen of the island from the outside world, of people who have not been.

Numerous punters are interviewed for the article, and judging by their inputs I would consider them to be the exact kind of people to avoid on a holiday like this. A 36-year old woman named Alison stated “We brought a few yokes with us. We put them in a condom and shoved them up our holes” – the exact kind of story you would like to hear while sitting at the pool. I do understand there’s two sides to Ibiza. There’s the people who are into music, and there’s the people who are into drugs, and of course there’s the people who are into both. Barbara went straight for the Ibiza-destruction approach with this article and interviewed the people who were predominately on the island to do drugs.

Apart from Amnesia’s Foam Party, you will rarely see a mention of a clubnight or DJ that Barbara or any of the interviewed island-goers went to see. You’ll read plenty of references to cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine – . Isn’t that what Ibiza is all about? No. This article is the perfect representation of the terrible views people have of clubbing culture. These kind of articles are the reasons we’re only seen as a drug-fuelled community to the regular person who doesn’t partake.

Comical stories dominate the article. Barbara tells us about another woman, Caroline who intelligently used her debit card to pay for two bags of cocaine that she acquired off a street dealer. I’d really like to hope this is a lie, as a street drug dealer is probably the last person on earth who should have your card details. If it isn’t a lie, I’d be worried about us as a human race. The articles continues to make myself feel better that I haven’t encountered these people as Barbara refers to a bar in San Antonio as Ibiza’s own Magaluf. I’d definitely wonder why you’d wish to be anywhere that resembles Magaluf, when you’re already in Ibiza. The glorification of drug-mule Michaella McCollum hilariously follows this as Barbara refers to her as a friend and tells us how she had promised her a drink when she came out of jail.

I’m not going to continue to talk you through this drug-glorifying article and quote how Barbara thinks we should all take drugs, nor do I really care for the people who can stay up for seven days straight. I don’t see it as a competition. Talking about a K-Hole as a good thing surely shows the lack of education here. The article has its disclaimers at the end stating that Ibiza is family friendly and that not everyone who goes there takes drugs, but the damage has been done.

The best advice I can give you is to avoid anyone who would talk to a national newspaper about smuggling pills to Ibiza by ‘shoving them up their hole’, and please don’t let your parents see that ridiculous ‘journalism’.It doesn’t represent who we are. The people we know who go to Ibiza regularly don’t talk like this. I’d even begin to wonder if the writer has made the quotes up. Who in their right mind would talk to a journalist from The Independent like this, even with the options of having their names changed for the article?

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